MCI Communications Corporation provides operator services and customer services through intelligent services networks ("ISNs"), commonly known as call centers. An ISN includes various electronic devices that provide telephone services to telephone callers and that are connected to an external public switched telephone network ("PSTN"). These electronic devices include audio response units ("ARUs") and operator consoles. ARUs provide automated voice messages to telephone callers. Operator consoles are used by telephone operators to provide directory assistance to telephone callers. The electronic devices are also connected to an internal local area network ("LAN") or to a wide area network ("WAN") over which they access and use services provided by Network Information Distribution Services ("NIDS") servers.
Software application programs running on computer components of the electronic devices access NIDS servers over the LAN or WAN through an MCI proprietary messaging protocol referred to as the NIDS sequenced packet protocol ("NSPP"). NSPP is a session-oriented packet exchange protocol that is implemented on top of an underlying UDP/IP communications interface. NSPP is designed to allow rapid information exchange between software application programs and NIDS services.
In order to employ the NSPP protocol, a software application program must include between 2,000-3,000 lines of specialized source code that implement the client portion of the NSPP protocol. This source code must be implemented specifically for each different type of software application program.
It is desirable for NIDS servers to be accessible to new clients that do not use and support the NSPP interface. Retrofitting the software application programs of these new clients to support NSPP, or rewriting the new clients' software application programs, is a prohibitively expensive process. It is also desirable to develop new software application programs for existing clients without implementing a NSPP protocol interface specifically for each new software application program. A need has been therefore recognized for a way to provide access to NIDS servers through a communications mechanism that does not require clients to implement and use the NSPP protocol.